


Slow Burn

by GlowingRae



Series: Slow Burn [1]
Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Light Angst, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-06-26 04:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15655740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlowingRae/pseuds/GlowingRae
Summary: With GLOW in Las Vegas, Sam and Ruth might make each other better, or they might destroy each other.  So when Sam goes on a video date, or Ruth accidentally reads Sam's R-rated Zoya fanfiction, or Debbie interrupts a key moment - it could be disastrous or a way to draw closer. Knowing Ruth and Sam, probably a little of both.





	1. Winds of Change

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still learning how to use AO3, since this was the first thing I have ever written.  
> I should have put Ruthless as Chapter 3 here. So I'm copying it over so I can add the rest of my chapters.

In his mind, he traces the outline of Ruth’s jawbone with his thumb, slowly. Her curls slip along the back of his hand. She looks up at him with those huge eyes – Christ, her eyes were fucking huge - and he feels her breath catch. Like that time at that fucking high school dance when they almost – but he doesn’t think about that much.

Yeah, right.

He shuts it down in his mind. Ruth is standing here in front of him right now, looking at him expectantly. “So what do you want to do?” One of the girls is the background waiting for an answer, some technical thing about the show. He sighs. “I don’t fucking know, just work it out, you wanted to be Alma,” he says, irritated. Ruth doesn’t seem to take offense though.

She turns to leave, but does that thing where she lingers, needing something more. It is a uniquely Ruth thing to do. To need something more, to be oblivious to his mood.

He softens his expression fractionally and waits. This at least he can do for her – be present, see her, give her what she needs this time.

“Is everything okay? You’ve been, I don’t know, grumpy, more than usual, I mean. Is it something with the show? Or Justine maybe?” Ruth asks.

Grumpy. It’s a word for an old man, he thinks in disgust. He considers bringing it up, which is a sign he is pretty far gone.

Ruth is looking at him, wanting him to say something. She glances at his shirt and a strange expression passes over her face – shit, he must have forgotten to change it today.

He’s been watching and sees Ruth is not ready for some kind of stupid move, even if he could think of a way to do that. He can see she is still terrified. As if he weren’t. Actually he hasn’t been thinking about that part much lately, just his wanting. More than that maybe, his hopes. He just can’t seem to fully kill them. Before he would have said that guy sounded like a pathetic asshole but he just doesn’t feel that way now. Maybe he is losing it.

Sam says he’s fine and forces a grimacing smile, which he knows she’s expecting, and she smiles back and leaves.

Ruth:

She can solve this problem on her own, of course she can. She doesn’t need Sam’s help. But she is drawn to the familiar pattern of talking to him and getting his grumpy response. Sometimes. It’s almost reassuring, that things are back to normal, after that moment at the dance. It means she hasn’t lost this friendship, he isn’t punishing her - and she doesn’t need to punish herself. That feeling, at least, is not familiar.

He is looking at her, really looking. There’s something about Sam that makes her feel seen. He never seems to be observing her but there it is anyway. He seems to know all about her. It is terrifyingly inescapable, new, and addictive.

Ruth catches herself looking at Sam’s chest hair, and has a sudden desire to touch him, right where his heart is. She wonders if he still smells the same, and remembers how her hair caught in his stubble, and his breath on her ear as he pulled her against him, and a moan barely caught in her throat, and she thinks she just might accidentally touch him if she does not stop thinking about it right now.

She refocuses on the conversation – what is wrong with her? It’s been more than a month. She is with Russell. This is her boss. And a truly terrible idea. That she cannot stop fantasizing about making happen.

She is attuned to his eyes assessing her. She knows what he is looking for, but pretends not to. He sees through that, too, and smiles slightly, lets her off the hook. She is disappointed and relieved.

She is trying to do the right thing. But there is so much of her that is never completely sure what that is.

Later, back in her room with Sheila sleeping, she lets herself indulge in thinking about The Road Not Taken. Fucking actresses, Sam would say about her turn of phrase, she smiles to herself.

She has been thinking about what makes conversations with Sam so exhilaratingly different from the ones she has with Russell. Besides the cussing. She feels so guilty but needs to understand.

Ruth can’t quite pin it down, but she thinks it has something to do with all the parts of herself she doesn’t like. Russell has been nothing but supportive, but she can’t put down the burden of trying to be a certain way, not too needy, a little cooler than she is. Ruth tries not to but it’s always there. It came close with Debbie, for a time, but even then there were the roles they each played.

Ruth relaxes the rules and allows herself to think about Sam for the five minutes before she falls asleep. She considered herself the brave, emotionally open one, but Sam’s directness had shocked and unnerved her. Ruth can’t lose this show, her family, her – whatever it is – with Sam.

She remembers the heat of Sam’s hand on the small of her back, the way he always opens car doors for her, his surprising tenderness pulling that boot off when she broke her ankle.

She swears she could actually feel his heart beating when she stumbled and he pulled her closer. Ruth is thinking about Madonna lyrics and she is feeling too warm and a little reckless. She fantasizes about a knock on the door and how she would feel pressed against him everywhere.

She lets herself be achingly aware that she wants more of him, even if he is not the sanest choice of partners and probably disastrous. And what she really wants is to be the kind of person whose decisions she could trust. But Ruth has messed up so many things. It’s exhausting, trying to become a better person.


	2. The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam really fucking doesn’t want to see Ruth on his way out. He’d be forced to notice her lack of reaction– or worse, endure her being kind and supportive, telling him it’s sweet or some shit like that – when she finds out he’s going on a date from the video dating service. He has to do something. He can't just sit here anymore while Ruth is with Camera Guy in a thousand different artfully pornographic ways.

Ruth is coming down from her high from their workout, where she mastered a new move she can’t wait to try in the ring with Debbie and show Sam. Thinking of both Debbie and Sam makes her feel guilty in a familiar way. She watches Sam walk across the lot to his room, feels a pang wondering where he had been and why he hadn’t taken her along.

Ruth’s post-workout animation has surpassed Sheila’s comfort levels, and she tries to redirect her as Ruth pulls into the motel parking lot. “Is Russell visiting this weekend? Don’t forget. Use the sock on the door if you need to.”

“Oh – you know – there’s so much going on, and Russell – he’s got stuff too – I’m not really sure…” Ruth says. Ruth’s attention is caught by a figure in dress pants and boots, opposite end of the lot, and she trails off. The truth is, she hadn’t talked to Russell in nearly a week. Not intentionally. She thinks he’s still coming this weekend. But is it bad she didn’t notice till now? And why is Sam wearing those pants? “I should call him. He’s a good guy, I can really work on that.”

She watches Ruth still gazing at Sam, looking a little intense and confused, like she has every day for months. Sheila has been patient, waiting for Ruth to figure it out. Wolves do have keen observational powers, but surely by now even Ruth should have gotten it. Maybe it is her responsibility to use her powers for good, instead of her strict Darwinian non-interventionist policy.

“I need to tell you something,” Sheila says. Her seriousness gets Ruth’s attention. “You know how I look– I have to put something on to become me. You understand. Some people are the opposite though. You might be like that.”

Ruth looks supportive but confused. “What do you mean? I’m wearing a costume? Well, we are professional wrestlers,” Ruth jokes, looking down at her leotard.

But Sheila won’t be brushed off. It’s too important. “It’s not good to pretend too long. You can forget how to be real.” Sheila points her nose, in a not un-wolf-like way, in the direction Sam has just left from. This is the biggest speech she has made in a long time. It’s enough for now. She can’t do everything.

Sam:

God, he feels like a fucking try-hard in his black dress pants – not even jeans – and his hair combed. He even trimmed his mustache. He’s glad he’s leaving before the girls return from practice. That’s just what he needs, all 14 of them catcalling him. Offering love advice. It makes him feel raw and naked. He’s not used to making an effort. Or being hopeful.

He really fucking doesn’t want to see Ruth on his way out. He’d be forced to notice her lack of reaction– or worse, endure her being kind and supportive, telling him it’s sweet or some shit like that – when she finds out he’s going on a date from the video dating service.

He thought nothing could be more ego destroying than finding out every single one them had watched his stupid ad – talking about how lonely he is – he cringes when he thinks of it. Directing them every day, knowing they had seen that, takes balls, he reflects with some pride returning. Still, it’s one of those nightmare scenarios not even Sam Sylvia, horror auteur, could have imagined about working on a women’s wrestling show. At least he had said his cock works great.

Sam checks the mirrors, smoothing his hair still feeling like an idiot, both dreading and hopeful, and across the lot he sees Ruth and Sheila. Fucking fantastic. This is not how he wants to start his date.

He feels himself spiraling into that desire and despair and hope he just can’t kill – and something else he doesn’t name yet - that happens whenever Sam thinks about Ruth.  

He flips on the radio to drown it out.  _I know just how to fake it, and I know just how to scheme. I know just when to face the truth and then I know just when to dream._ He hated this song before.  And now he starts to hate himself for letting it get to him.

Sam tries thinking about the video date woman. She had seemed decent, under 30, hot, certainly fuckable. A single mom. Maybe they can talk about being parents. Oh God, is he a parent? Is that something he is now? He doesn’t fucking know. Probably not. All of this, this bullshit in his head, is exactly why he should stay the fuck away from her.

That and his feelings about Ruth that he has been suppressing for so long, they’ve fucked his head. He no longer knows if she’s changed him, if that’s good or bad, if it’s permanent, or if he’s going insane. Maybe all of those.

Best case scenario, the date goes great and he takes her back to his room, and for half a night he feels not horrible. Worst case scenario – well, it probably can’t get much worse than sitting in the goddamn parking lot, lurking while Ruthie grows even closer to Camera Guy. He’s been unofficially tracking it for weeks, hadn’t known that he was at first.

He feels like the kidnapper in the schlocky music video they had made. All Bash had to do to look like a creep was put on a coat and his mustache. But Sam’s mustache is not negotiable. It stays. And he is going on this date. He has to do something.

He meets Miriam at the restaurant, does the right things, opening the door, pulling out her chair. He’s rusty but not bad at this – growing up in the 50s makes these small courtesies natural.  He knows he can meet these expectations without disappointing anyone.  You would almost think he was gallant, someone who can be a decent date. Which really fucks with his mind.

She looks fantastic, in a wine-colored dress that hugs her. So different from Ruth's bare face and unflattering clothes.  Ruth, who, he harshly reminds himself, is probably fucking Camera Guy in a thousand different artfully pornographic ways right now. And what's wrong with being a little proud that at least Miriam has chosen to go out with him. Picked Sam over all possible men on the video tapes.  Why not enjoy that? 

Okay, maybe it’s not the most interesting conversation he’s ever had. He is not compulsively absorbed, infuriated and frustrated and fascinated and inspired, like with Ruth. Ruth makes it easy in some ways. Sam’s not going to get used to working hard to pay attention to something that isn’t him.

As she talks, he tries to imagine how a woman like Miriam might fit into his life. She’d look good next to him on the red carpet, if they were ever stupid enough to invite him there again. Probably not, though.  He envisions their day to day life: her finding him on the floor in a coked up fit of wallowing, or alongside him while he works himself into a triumphant exhaustion or raging despair, depending on how the work goes. Christ, just sitting next to her through one of his movies. It’s not a good fit. No way would this woman want to be around him like that, or discuss the technical aspects of meat grinders in vaginas.  Or the fine points of scripts about Kuntar battling to mate with the last male specimen in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The corner of his mouth quirks up, remembering Ruthie asking with bright interest, in that too-loud stage whisper of hers, “Is this the one with the anal birth?” He laughs, chokes on his drink, at the same time his heart squeezes painfully.

He can’t make the scene work. There’s no fucking way. If you’ve got to cut, decisive is best.

“Right -- you’re an attractive woman. You can do a lot better than me,” he says. He realizes too late he is interrupting her.

She doesn’t look surprised, really, shakes him off when he offers to walk her to her car, not offended but not wanting to linger. “I hope she figures it out,” Miriam says, kindly, as she leaves.

Definitely too good for him. He nods, not bothering to pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Sam throws money on the table, walking away with his hands in his pockets, not sure where he is going next. He can’t go back to his room feeling like this.


	3. Ruthless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth comes by to confess something and Sam accidentally reveals too much:  
> He had spent hours writing something else, something private, trying to write Ruth out of his system. It was raw and painful and he was using his writing like a purgative. He was being ruthless. Or learning to be Ruth-less, he guessed. It had taken a fair amount of coke and booze to keep him focused – and a pill he had dug up from somewhere that he still didn’t know what it was. Maybe that’s what had done him in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this - this should have been a chapter all along.

Sam struggles up from the couch where he’s crashed. It’s past one in the morning and he can tell from the tentative knocking that it’s Ruth. Who else would be here for him at this hour?

He’s past caring his place is a wreck. She’s seen it before and worse. He does check to make sure he’s tucked in everywhere before opening the door.

“Ruth,” he says, standing in the doorway, not letting her in. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I was just thinking about -- did I wake you? I saw your light and I wanted to see if you needed anything. Sorry, sorry, I can go.” She is looking past him at the space. In one glance she can see he’s been in all night, and he’s been writing, and getting loaded. She looks a little worried. “What happened to your shirt? And your…place?”

There is no way he is answering that. He steps aside, gestures her in. She eases around him. Ruth picks up a half-empty pizza box, heads for the kitchen, brings him a glass of water.

He is still only half-awake, and Ruth’s energy is grating on him, but he is relieved to have someone else in the space that was starting to feel pretty fucking miserable.

Tonight has been a night for brutal honesty. He doesn’t spare himself from what he inflicts on others. He was trying to work on his next project but it just wouldn’t come. Some aspect of her was in every shot. Or if it wasn’t, he was thinking about showing it to her, what she might think, how they would talk it through, whether he would cast her in his next movie – whether she would accept - how he felt weirdly happy thinking of that.

He had spent hours writing something else, something private, trying to write Ruth out of his system. It was raw and painful and he was using his writing like a purgative. He was being ruthless. Or learning to be Ruth-less, he guessed. It had taken a fair amount of coke and booze to keep him focused – and a pill he had dug up from somewhere that he still didn’t know what it was. Maybe that’s what had done him in.

And from the way he felt he found her at his door, it hadn’t worked.

Ruth is back in the kitchen making too much noise. Cleaning up after him. Bottles hit the trash can, and winces. Then it is mercifully quiet and he drinks his water, tries to figure out what she is doing here.

“Have you been writing?” she calls from the kitchen.

“Hmm. Yeah,” he says. He’s left his script on the counter, such as it is. It still needs a lot of work, and he is thinking about this, trying to step back and see where he can fix it, when Ruth comes around the corner, papers in hand.

“A new project? Sam, are you leaving GLOW?” Ruth asks. “Why now?”

“Look, relax, it’s just something I’m working on, I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “But someday, yeah, we’re all going to move on, and I’d like to not get caught with my dick hanging out.” This is one of the things he’s been hammering into his own brain tonight. That probably not too far from now, they’ll all go their separate ways. And he might not see her again. Fuck.

Ruth is still shuffling through the papers, nosy as ever. He can see she wants to be asked to read it, and hell, maybe she’ll be able to find a way out of this mess. She’s done it before. He’s about to give her permission to read it but she’s already doing it, and he lets it happen.

“I thought you hated my name,” she says, still reading.

What is she talking about? Sam looks up to see the papers in her hand have coffee grounds and pizza sauce on them, and he comes fully awake, fast. Wrong script.

“Ruth, no, that’s not – Fuck--“ he moves surprisingly quickly given the state of his head. There is way he can let her read his idiot fantasies, his emotional jerkoff material. His soft-core smut. Okay, not entirely soft-core. He curses the years of therapy that have led him to make such a stupid mistake, thinking this exercise would get him to sanity.

“Sam?” Ruth sounds hurt. “Are you casting a movie, with my name in it, but not auditioning me?”

“God, no, it’s not a script. It’s just…something I was working on,” he says. Maybe she will let it go. But of course she won’t. He is reaching for the script but doesn’t want to look juvenile, like some kind of fucking amateur, so he doesn’t grab for it, and she is still flipping pages.

He stands in front of her, glaring, trying to silently will her into giving the pages back without a scene, knowing that’s not how this scene is going to go.

“I can’t believe you named a character after me! I shall accept this tribute most graciously,” she says in a proper British accent. “Wait. This is…Are you shooting porn, Sam? Is Russell helping you?”

Russell helping him. Not only did she bring her boyfriend up in the middle of reading Sam’s wet dreams, she thinks he needs his help. “No! I told you, it’s not a script.” Sam can’t stand this another second, grabs the papers back from Ruth. He stalks to the kitchen and shoves them in the trash, burying them. He comes back to stand in front of her, locking himself in for her reaction. How much did she read? He hoped she had not gotten to the part about Ruth on her knees in front of him…or worse, the thing he had written about Zoya standing over him with that fucking whip from Melrose’s dominatrix phase. By the look in her eyes, she read something.

“Look. I was just – working things out of my system, okay? It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t have to look at me that way. Like you’ve never watched porn.” He is trying to brush it off.

“Not porn about me, no,” she says, and he grimaces. “Is it? About me, I mean? It doesn’t mean anything? What does it mean? Is that what you want?”

He thinks of all he wants from her. How can she still not know? She is always pushing him, with her earnestness and her too-direct questions and her closeness that is still out of reach, and he rubs his hands through his hair in frustration. And to keep from reaching for her. Again. “Don’t be an idiot,” he says. “Of course not. I’m a lonely old man, you know that – “

“I don’t know that many old men who write about being tied down and flogged by a Russian dominatrix,” she says.

“Really? Because I don’t know any who don’t.” She rolls her eyes. “Maybe you need to meet more interesting people.” He is successfully defusing the situation. “You know I respect you and all that bullshit, I’ve made you co-director. I’m just going through a flawed, possibly self-destructive, creative process, as my ex-wife’s therapist says.”

“You think?” Ruth says. “Is this why…I just don’t want this to be like Tom Grant,” she says. As soon as she says it, she regrets it. She looks up at Sam’s face, and before his eyes shutter, there is a terrible look. Something like betrayal.

“That’s what you think? Is that how you see me? Great. Okay. Get out,” Sam says.

“No, of course not, I—“

“Listen, you came to me! I didn’t ask you to come here. I sure as shit didn’t ask you to dig through my fucking trash and read what doesn’t belong to you. I’m fucking nice to Camera Guy – Russell– what more do you want? Tom Fucking Grant, really.” His contempt s worse than shouting to her. The shouting is regular. This is quiet and painful. “I tried to kiss you – once – I thought maybe you wanted it. I was wrong, I guess. I left you the fuck alone when you didn’t. But you think that I would –“

“No, I don’t, Sam, please,” she says. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s just that he wanted to ‘wrestle’ with Zoya, too, you know? And I didn’t. Want to. At all. And he just assumed that I would. Or I had to. But that isn’t you. And it’s not that I didn’t want it, with you. I just – I was scared. But not like that. I know you’re not Tom Grant. You would never…make me take a bath with you.”

“A bath? Is that what happened? You never told me that. Jesus, that’s creepy.” He looks so distant from her, but something about this detail seems to have snapped him back into being on her side.

“And you’re right, I did come here, uninvited. I looked in your trash. That’s creepy too, in a way,’ she offers.

“Yeah, it is,” Sam says. “Why are you here, anyway? Are we doing this? Let’s have it, we’re already into it now.”

She sits on the couch, becomes suddenly aware that with Sam standing still in front of her, the angles are like the scene she just read. She is relieved when he sits down too. He is no longer radiating hostility at her, more like hurt. She feels awful. But she felt awful before she got there.

Her brain is still spinning. Reading herself as that powerful in someone else’s mind was…complicated. Heady. Embarrassing. Arousing. Confusing. She’s not used to being the object of someone’s fantasies. And is it even about her, or just Zoya?

Sam looks broken, sitting there, like he is waiting for the next blow. She had come here seeking comfort, and company, validation. Distraction from the fight she’d had with Russell. Maybe she was using Sam, and that was wrong.

Even more wrong than what she had done to Russell, which had not been on purpose. Calling out someone else’s name while they were making love wasn’t her fault. Russell had been nice about it – he hadn’t even gotten mad. He was such a great guy - but it had been one thing too many, after she had done the same thing in her sleep weeks before. Ruth had said she was overtired, and it didn’t mean anything – just like Sam had just said to her about his fantasies – but maybe they were both wrong. In any case, Russell had said she needed to work some things out, shooting a look across the parking lot at Sam’s door, and left, and the girls were insatiable to know why, and she couldn’t possibly explain it was because she kept calling out Sam’s name.

There is one person she can tell. After his embarrassing written confession, this could equalize things between them again. It would show him she trusts him and knows he isn’t Tom Grant.

He is staring at the floor, probably still angry, and in a rush she says, “I came here because – Russell and I broke up.” He looks up now, but it hasn’t fixed anything, she can see that.

“And you thought I needed to know this at one in the morning, why?” he says. God, she must think he’s a total schmuck. That he’ll be so pathetically grateful for this news and have nothing better to do than hear it. But you are glad, and you didn’t have anything better to do, asshole, he thinks. You spent all night thinking about her. He’s still angry at her assumptions though.

“I just wanted to talk to someone about it – and I couldn’t tell anyone else because…That’s not important why.”

“So you came all the way over here to tell me something you can’t tell me. Got it. Fantastic. And now that we’ve done that –“ he is escorting her to the door. He stops. “Ruth. You know everything about me. I’m an open fucking book to you. What do you want me to say? I’m sorry you broke up? I’m not, really. You’ll get over it. Or you won’t. It’ll make you a better artist.”

“You think I’m an artist?” This might be the nicest thing Sam has ever said to her. Sam groans. This is not the point he is making.

“Good night,” he says, pushing her out, slamming the door on her. He imagines her expression; it gives him petty satisfaction. Then he remembers the nakedness of the pain on her face when he told her she was replaceable and Debbie closed her out, how even in that moment he knew it was a shameful thing to do, and he is suddenly ashamed again.

From outside, Ruth says quietly, and a little dramatically, “I came to tell you that Russell and I broke up because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” It’s a relief to say it, to be free.

On the other side of the door, Sam is waiting for the blow. The woman he loves – fuck, does he love her? – came here to tell him she can’t stop thinking of him, and he shoved her out of his house and slammed the door on her. Yeah, that seems like something he would do.

He waits to hear her say he is an asshole and this is a bad idea, but she doesn’t. Ruth already knows he’s an asshole, she knows all about him and has always seen right through him, and she’s still here, on his doorstep. Is this really happening? She can’t be this insane, he thinks. He is unbearable. Everyone has said. But equally unbearable is letting her leave. What the fuck is he doing standing in here with a door between them? He needs to read her expression to be sure.

He opens the door. He is alone.


	4. Whiplash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One minute he was touching her hair, the next he was squinting at her angrily and stalking off.  Or writing erotically about her then kicking her out.   It was like being with a scene partner who, just when she was ready to put her all into it, left the stage. Infuriating.  Rude.  Just wrong. It was giving her whiplash.  
> This chapter has some fanfiction from Sam Sylvia about Zoya, rated M for Mature.

Ruth was hunched in a vinyl lounge chair, drowning in an ugly shirt.  She could be wearing his shirt, Sam thought. But of course she wasn’t. 

Sam’s eyes were bleary and his lids were beginning to droop with the need for sleep.  In the morning light everything seemed hysterically bright and his brain was buzzing.  He’d been out all night re-learning Vegas.  Who to avoid, who to manipulate if he needed something, who to not piss off. 

Ruth looked a hell of a lot better than him.  Probably the 20 years she had on him.  Ruth was all curves – the arch of her foot he had once cradled, her calves, her hips, her pale cheeks, even her hair curved.  He refused to think about the soft expanse of her thigh curving out from under the edge of her shorts. Just like he did every night when she was Zoya.  But Ruth was hard when she was Zoya – sharp white teeth and lips so red they were almost black, curling in a snarl, muscles slicked with sweat, crushing opponents in the ring, radiating power -- he had to stop this.  Even he is not this much of a masochist.

Ruth’s intense concentration, her sheaf of papers she was marking up next to a pool sparkling in sunlight in Vegas, made her look out of place.  As usual.  The corner of his mouth quirked up a little.

Sam caught a whiff of the clothes he’d been wearing in the heat for more than a day.  Unpleasant but not out of place.  Vegas fit him, or he fit Vegas.  Despite his recent successes, Sam still maintained an armed neutrality with his loneliness and his problems. Either way, it meant the same thing. Ruth and Sam were different.

Since the night Ruth had come to his door to say she couldn’t stop thinking about him, then left him alone on his doorstep, they had returned to normalcy. He liked that, too. It wasn’t everything, but he was used to that. It was probably best to keep it that way.  He needed her – the show needed her. 

Ruth waved at him from the other side of the pool deck, half-rising. Her entire upper body got in on the wave.  Even when she was silent she was overselling her casual encounters.

“Good morning,” Sam said.

“Wow, where have you been all night?  You look –“

“Yeah, I feel like shit, too, thanks for bringing it up, always with the welcoming greeting,” Sam said.  “I’ve been working.  What’s going on here?”

“I’ve been working, too. Without close-ups and editing, did you think it felt a little flat last night?”

She had hit perfectly on his most intense fear, that he was laughably out of his depth directing a live show in Vegas.  Sam winced. People were depending on him to make it work – and now the show’s investors – but fuck those rich assholes.  Fourteen women, though, relying on him – it was all his nightmares combined. He was used to disappointing just himself.  Or at worst, an ex-wife.  Even that was brutal.  This time his failure would bring them all down.  Telling everyone he didn’t give a fuck, being an enormous prick to capsize the project and relieve the pressure, wasn’t something he could live with this time.

Ruth was saying something about flames in the ring, a fleet of motorcycles, and a phoenix.  It tended to get sloppy when you got desperate. 

He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Just calm down, alright?  We want it to be epic, yeah, but you don’t want to rely on special effects to get there. It’s lazy.” 

“Oh, so more like the subtle narrative of _Blood Disco 2_?” Ruth teased.

Sam shot her a quick flat look and said, “Hey. No. I told you.  Storytelling.” 

Ruth leaned in, waiting, like Sam was going to say something profound, and damn if he didn’t rise to the challenge.  How he came to be the kind of person who had this still blindsided him.  Worse – he had begun to count on it.  She expected so much.  It was exhausting and he had first resented it but now he craved it.  Being around Ruthie was like discovering a new drug. One that didn’t jangle around in his system for days making him feel sick and punished and drained.  This punishment would just be longer – and much, much worse.  Sam tried not to imagine the shit he will do to himself when it is gone.

She had said she couldn’t stop thinking about him, but how long could that last?  And she hadn’t mentioned it since.  Of course, he had kicked her out when she said it.

Ruth’s face was lit up with excitement, the sun coming up behind her, and it gave the effect that she was glowing all the way through to the ends of her hair.  She looked impossibly fresh. What was it?  _The rays of the sun streaming through the waves in your hair._ Oh God, that idiotic song was still rolling around in his brain.  He stubbed out his cigarette, sat on the edge of her lounger without intending to. He framed it up in his mind, seeing how he could use it later.  He was saving as much as he could for later. 

 “What? Do I have something in my hair?” Ruth asked, as she started to self-consciously raise her arm to check as she noticed Sam studying her.

Sam caught her hand on the way up, held it between both of his.  Ruth froze.  “Nothing is wrong.  You look…beautiful,” he said.  He touched the end of one of her dark curls. It was irresistible.  When Ruth didn’t back away, he felt like a goddamn hero.  Just as she looked like she was going to say something, Sam stood abruptly, scowling, and left.  Best to leave before he fucked the scene up, he thought. 

Ruth watched Sam go.

There was a disturbing sense of giddiness in her head now.  Everything seemed sharper, funnier, and she felt like telling someone something, anything.  It worried her. 

One minute he was touching her hair, the next he was squinting at her and stalking off.  Or writing erotica about her then kicking her out.   It was like being with a scene partner who, just when she was ready to put her all into it, give everything, left the stage. 

Infuriating.  Rude.  Just wrong. It was giving her whiplash.

As soon as she resolved to be strictly professional, he showed up treating her like a partner and touching her and crumbling her resolutions.  Hadn’t she poured out her heart to him, taken a huge risk when she knew he was her boss and frankly, not that stable? And he had kicked her out.  It was humiliating, and it had hurt. The hot and cold was completely confusing. Just like Rosalie had said.  She was a magnet for unavailable men who complimented her. 

Vegas was throwing her confidence off.  She was used to being invisible around Debbie.  Vegas was like being around a thousand Debbies.  Everything – the people, the buildings, the lights, the costumes – glittered.  It was in the desert but always seemed devoid of warmth to her.  The costumes they tried to put them in were too revealing, and the sequins cut into her.  They must cut into everyone but they had trained themselves not to care.  It was inhuman, unnerving.

She flashed on the lines about Zoya she had read in Sam’s kitchen. It had been popping up in her brain at the worst times.  At night when she was alone, newly single.  Standing in the ring in costume, with Sam below her looking up.  When she landed a power move.  

> Zoya stands in the ring, her booted foot on Sam’s back.  His erection is pressed painfully into the mat. She crushes him slowly.  He struggles to breathe. ‘You are weak American man,’ she says, contempt dripping from her voice.  ‘You dare to love Zoya.  You are not worthy.  You will show you understand this,’ Zoya says, prodding him in the ribs. 
> 
> Sam craves her, pathetically, he has tried not to but he has failed, and now he can do nothing but worship her, and he crawls to her and kisses her boot.  He knows this is as close as he would ever get to her. 
> 
> Zoya gazes down impassively, pulls him up by the hair, eyes and teeth gleaming in the stage lights.  She fists his shirt front and slams him into the ropes, not breaking eye contact.  He groans.  She advances, grinds the hard muscles of her thigh into him, and he is panting with pain and need and desire. 
> 
> ‘Please,’ he says, not sure if he wants more or less. Both. ‘I don’t deserve you.’
> 
> ‘Nyet,’ says Zoya. ‘Zoya has love only for Mother Russia. And now, you will be punished.’
> 
>  

She had to admit the scene was good.  She hadn’t been able to put it fully out of her mind since she first read it.  Did Sam want her, or just Zoya, like Tom Grant had?  And she had seen her name in the papers elsewhere – what had he written about the actual Ruth?  Did she even want to know?

Ruth remembered her teenage years.  She was never someone powerful, desired, craved like that – but if she was very, very careful, and sweet and nice, she could be liked.  Sometimes.  When she created Zoya she didn’t know it would change her but it had. 

It angered Ruth, this self-consciousness that had seeped into the thing that brought her the most joy.  She resented having to know Sam had seen Zoya like that, had put her into a scene for his personal amusement.  Zoya was hers.  She should say that to Sam.  Make him understand. Find out what he meant by it. What she wanted him to mean by it.

But she wasn’t going to let herself chase him down while she was so mixed up. Zoya would never do that, and some part of her was Zoya.  Still, they were going to have to talk about it sometime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really had a good time envisioning what Sam would have written. I struggled with this chapter, though, which led to a backlog of chapters I'm now uploading all at once. I might come back and edit this as the story progresses.


	5. The Real Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A script between Sam and Ruth about their feelings. Ruth demands answers, and Sam delivers. Contains references to My Fair Lady, sort of.

Are you avoiding me?

I’m working, Ruth.  I’m the director. I don’t have to clear every move with you. Look. We’re fine.  Okay? Just concentrate on the show.

How can I?  You won’t talk to me. I can’t focus. You look at me – like that – and you write those things about me –about Zoya - and then you shove me out the door. I didn’t know I was that repulsive to you. 

Don’t do that, fishing for compliments.  It’s beneath you.  You’re not an idiot. Right?

Thank you?

So don’t worry about it.  They’re just stories.  I do werewolf scripts and post-apocalyptic jerkoff space operas, you said. Which I might point out are still studied in colleges.  They aren’t real.  Kuntar had plenty of sex scenes in it.  Also not real.  It’s just something I do.

You keep saying that.  I thought you…I thought we were friends, maybe.  I thought that was real.  When I read what you wrote about Zoya, about me playing Zoya, maybe you--

Oh.  That’s the one you read. 

There’s more?

There’s always more. I’m a fucking genius, remember?  Alright, look.  And no – before you say it - no, you can’t read the other parts.  I threw them away. You were there.  Don’t be so needy.

Maybe you got them out of the trash.  You’re such a genius, you wouldn’t toss out your own scripts, right?

I’m also critical and self-loathing. It’s one of my best qualities.  I throw plenty of shit away.  And I told you, it’s not a script. 

You used the present tense.  I knew it. You still have it. 

Yes, I still fucking have it, Ruth.  It makes me feel like shit so of course I keep it around. Is that what you want?

No, of course not. I -

Why are you pushing this?  You ran away.  Twice.  I’ve never seen anyone move so fast on one leg. It was inspiring, really. You don’t want this.  Three shrinks have said and two wives agree. Majority rules, right?  I’m doing you a favor. Take some fucking direction.

Well, stop.  Stop deciding for me.  I mean, sure, you can be a little...mean.  But I like that you're honest. And the show— it’s actually good. We depend on you, all of us, and –

Christ, don’t remind me—

-And you don’t let us down.  You stand up for us.  You get me pink donuts and toys for Randy and get punched by Carmen’s dad.  Who is...well...bigger than you.  We’re partners. You’re kind of my best friend, I think.  You’re – evolving - as a dad.  I don’t think you do nearly as much coke as you used to.  Plus, even Cherry said you’re loyal, and she doesn’t even like you that much.

Wow, you were really on a streak until the end there.  Seriously, though, that’s what you see?

And I’m not perfect. You said I’m needy. And I might be.  I mess things up all the time.  I’ve cheated. Ruined friendships.  I have a lot of anxiety about…just, a lot of things. 

Oh, you’re a real nightmare.

You didn’t even like me at first. 

That’s not true.  I _said_ I didn’t like you, but I also said maybe I liked you too much. 

So which is it?

Christ, Ruth, you already know this.

Wait – is this like, a Pygmalion thing for you?  You know, because you made Zoya, it’s some kind of weird obsession?

Pygmalion?  Wow.  You went way back with that one.  Tell me, who’s Eliza? Is this the Dan Aykroyd version?  I love that guy.

I’m serious, Sam. 

You know in Shaw’s original, they don’t get together, right?  She leaves him.

Yes, but in Trading Places they’re best friends. 

What are you asking me here?  If this is the original or the adaptation? 

Maybe.  I don’t know. Did you fall for Gina the Machina?

Well, she was a succubus, so no.  This is what you’re worried about?

Not all of it.  I have…concerns.  I just want to know.  Before I -

Wow, you’re bad at this.  Worse than me, even.  You’re going to have to make a decision at some point, Ruth.

Can you just -

Hey.  You created Zoya. Not me.  Remember?  It would be weird if you had a thing for her.  But me, that’s just normal. 

Okay, but your story – it was a little – you know – kind of -

Oh, you’re right, it was hot, there are some good ideas in there if you’re open-minded – hey, don’t punch me, I might get the wrong idea.  Look.  Zoya’s in there because you are in her. Maybe I thought that was the only way – Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good script –

You said it wasn’t a script.

Don’t miss the point.  Ruth –you know - you’re the real story.   If it makes you feel any better, you should see what I wrote about _you_.

Can I read it?

No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing dialogue between Sam and Ruth. It is my absolute favorite thing to do. I didn't keep the dialogue tags in, because it seemed to me you could tell who was saying what and it alternated back and forth. But I would love to hear if you find it confusing, and I can add them back in.


	6. St. Juda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruth finally makes a decision, on a rooftop in the dark with Sam. Until they are interrupted.  
> “Maybe we don’t need St. Juda,” Sam said, as he kissed the top of her head, rubbing his nose against the soft curls, wanting to give her a break and a chance to reconsider. He hoped she wouldn’t reconsider too much. By the way his leg was still trapped between her thighs, she hadn’t yet come to any terrible realizations.

Ruth climbed the stairs to the roof, desperate to get away from the constant noise and eternal clanging and pinging and occasional whooping of the casino below.  Inside the casinos you couldn’t tell if it was 6 am or midnight. The lights, the smoke, the pleasantly cool constant temperature, the polite professionalism of the shift workers who must have been dead tired – it all seemed so false. 

The wrestling seemed somehow pure in contrast.  Every action had a direct and simple consequence.  Get thrown, slammed down, and your skin would sting and muscles would ache.  Land wrong even just a bit, and bruises would bloom.   Lose focus and you could get seriously hurt. 

Her stomach growled as she caught the scent of the burgers in the bag she clutched.  Eating a burger on the roof, with the wind in her hair, was exactly what she needed. 

Ruth stepped onto the roof, letting the heavy door clang shut behind her.  The neon glare of the signs looked better from here, mixing with the sunset.  It was the one time the light and dark weren’t competing against each other. 

She took a deep breath and deliberately let her shoulders drop, rolling her neck to get the kinks out.  Off to the side, Ruth saw a figure silhouetted against the lights.  When he turned to the source of the noise, Sam looked more relaxed than she’d seen him in weeks. With his boots and hardly washed jeans, he looked like he should have been here all along. 

Instead of disappointment her perfect plan was shattered, her heart gave an alarming leap. A little thrum of excitement started low in her belly, and she paused to consider this. 

Sam heard light footsteps approach and hesitate.  There was a hushed sentence of expectancy in the air.  He knew even before he turned it was Ruth, somehow she had honed in on him like she always does.  He must have been sending out some kind of beacon – it was comforting but uncanny how she always turned up in the middle of everything.  Sam felt like he was casting her over and over again, in different scenes, and she kept turning up to audition but wouldn’t agree to the role. 

He jerked his head up in acknowledgement, gave a half smile, but Ruth appeared to be paralyzed.  She was always wanting more invitation than that.

“Are you hungry?” Ruth called, approaching him.  “Should I – did you want to be alone, or…? What are you doing up here?”

 _What are you doing_ , Sam wanted to say, but didn’t. He said only, “Oh, you know.  Taking it in.  Trying to find some lighting that will work for the show. Make it fit with Vegas.  The neon is easy, it’s this feeling” – he indicated the dark sky and the sign lights so bright they seemed almost noisy, the street sounds competing with the silent expansiveness of the sky and the desert beyond.  “That’s the challenge.” 

Ruth handed him a burger and took a bite of her own as she came to stand beside Sam, looking out. “Hmm.  Pretty but brutal.”

“Kind of like women’s wrestling,” he said.  As usual, they were on the same wavelength. About work, at least.  She held the bag out, and he swiped some fries, as they ate in companionable silence.  She was the only woman he had ever known that could be this comfortable with him.  To let a silence stretch and grow into some kind of intimacy.

The distant noises and swiftly rising dark added to the sense of being two people together, sharing the world. She was so close he could feel her heat in the cooling air.

It had been too long since they had been this comfortable together.  She craved his attention, his warmth, his rare true grin.  She seemed to find him everywhere.  Even now, she knew she was gazing at him, trying to make the correct decisions, not disappoint anyone – including herself.  She was exhausted by it.  But Sam was right – she hadn’t, in fact, made any decisions.  

Ruth watched a slight breeze ruffle Sam’s hair, and she smiled. It was the small things that made it so easy to see the kid in Sam.  It was always there just below the surface, and she didn’t know why no one else seemed to see it.

How did she wind up here, on a dark rooftop in Vegas, bruised from acting like a Russian villain, sick with desire to put her hand on the rough stubble of a man nobody thought was good for her? 

She shivered slightly, and Sam silently removed his jacket and put it over her.  Surprisingly, she didn’t argue.  He watched her watching him, and it took all his restraint to not demand to know what she was thinking.

“It smells like you,” Ruth said. 

 _Is that a good thing?_ “How do you know how I smell?” he asked, trying to lighten the mood, ease some of the pressure.  “What are you, Sheila?”

Ruth was still observing Sam like a character study.  Like something she would be quizzed on later.  Normally he would've been unnerved but having this much of Ruth’s focus satisfied something he hadn't known was missing.  He knew her eyes were blue but her pupils were wide and her eyes looked like the sky. 

He was on the brink of demanding, “What?!” when Ruth said, “I like you up here.  It suits you.”

Sam grinned and said, “I like you in my jacket,” but before he could fully relax again, Ruth got an apologetic look he was too familiar with.  She was worrying again. Which was always a bad sign for Sam.

“Here – I shouldn’t – you look cold too,” she said, as she tried to figure out how to hand him half of his jacket back. 

God, he was ridiculously glad Ruth was talking just about his jacket, and not about him.  So relieved he gave a small huff of laughter.  It made him feel reckless, and the desire to close the space between them was overwhelming.  Music started playing in the distance and Sam wanted to reach out, bring Ruth in close and dance with her, but that had been a fucking disaster. Almost everything he did went the wrong way, and she left.  And he didn’t want her to leave now.

Instead, Sam deliberately stepped back.  He was cold, but he’d had worse.  He sat on the concrete, which still retained some heat from the day, and stretched out flat with his arms behind his head, looking up at the sky.  He was giving her space to make a decision.  To commit to the action.  It always made for a better scene. 

Ruth considered, but could not resist joining a dramatic moment.  She knelt awkwardly to join Sam on the rough concrete, wincing as it bit into the raw skin on her knees.  She was still cold.  Ruth laid back, gazing up at the sky alongside him. 

This was the closest Ruth had been to Sam since the dance.  He smelled even better up close, like Drakkar Noir and whiskey and always like nicotine, which smelled somehow of home.  She breathed in deeply. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him notice – of course – but he just smiled fractionally and didn’t call her on it.  She was relieved and a little disappointed.

It had been so long since Ruth felt this.  She couldn’t seem to get close enough and her longing made her feel needy and desperate.  It made her feel like her old self, the one she was struggling to leave behind in her new life.  

But this feeling with Sam is also somehow more intimate than the flabby fumbling with Mark or the previous forgettable boyfriends she'd had.  It might be better even than the consistently decent sex she had enjoyed with Russell.  Of course, that made it more dangerous, too.  Ruth felt guilty thinking about Russell, but it felt like he belonged to a different person, a before-Ruth. Someone entirely separate from her.

Ruth was so tired of not doing the things she most wanted to do.  Worrying about everything that would come after. 

She shifted closer to Sam.  She could always say she was just cold.  He said nothing still, just unfolded his arm and drew her in.  Ruth had not anticipated that, and now there was no denying she was nestled against Sam, her head against his chest, her hair trailing over his arm. 

She felt his chest move up and down with his breathing.  There seemed to be a slight hitch in Sam's breathing when she turned to get more comfortable and put her hand on his stomach.  It made her feel powerful.  She glanced up at him to see what was expected from her. 

Sam tried not to move or itch or say something stupid to fuck it up somehow. It was a struggle. He had always made people leave by saying the wrong thing, or sometimes saying the right thing to get them to go. He was a master at it.  So he said nothing at all, just reached out to offer his hand, which she silently took. 

“Cassiopeia,” Sam said, after a stretch of silence, nodding with his chin at the sky.

“Where? I can’t see the stars, there are too many lights,” Ruth said. 

“Oh it’s there.  Somewhere.  In Vegas, you just have to imagine it,” Sam said.  “Your turn.”

“I see great Soviet bear,” Ruth said as Zoya, releasing Sam’s hand to draw a vaguely bear-shaped block in the sky, nowhere near Ursa Major. 

Sam chuckled, and Ruth returned her hand to his.  Her thumb traced over his wrist, and his pulse jumped. 

To calm his mind, he thought of desert metaphors he could unfortunately relate to – dying of thirst, a far-off oasis – a mirage.  Maybe that’s what this is, and when she got too close, it would disappear.

“My favorite is Saint Juda,” Sam said, indicating a blob of stars that could, if you squinted very hard, be perceived as vaguely human-shaped.  “Seeing him in the sky is supposed to bring luck to hopeless endeavors.” 

“Really?” Ruth asked, believing him.

“No,” said Sam.  “Well, there is a Catholic saint. There’s a saint for every goddamn thing.  But I don’t think he’s up there. We could use it.”  Occasionally his pessimism was still at odds with his recent Ruth-related hopefulness.

“A mirage,” Ruth said suddenly.  “That’s how we can bring Vegas into the show.  All the matches, the girls, are a mirage in the end.”  Ruth was practically humming with excitement at her idea, and she wanted to see Sam’s reaction.

Was she reading his mind?  How did she do that?  Sam couldn’t take how Ruth was looking at him, so hopeful, her pale face engulfed by her dark hair and eyes bright with inspiration. 

She paused, searching his face, and he had seen this look before.  He wanted so badly to kiss her. He wanted to push the curls off her face so he could see her, trace her lips with his thumb, feel her breath quicken and her mouth open to his.  The wanting was almost painful.  It seemed like the moment but this was Ruth. She had her own scene to direct and he let her have it. 

She twisted up, grabbing the front of Sam’s shirt, and flashed back on the secret desire she'd had for months of touching Sam’s chest, feeling his heartbeat, and almost automatically she flattened her hand.  Ruth was not sure what Sam could see in the dark.  She said his name, almost experimentally, a question in it.

Then Ruth’s hand found a space between the buttons on his shirt, and Sam inhaled sharply. He didn’t want to moan and make her leave.

But Ruth didn’t leave.  She was still curled against him, but even more so now.  Somehow his hand had found the small of her back and was pressing her tightly against him. 

She smiled in a very Zoya-like way when he bit back a groan. She deliberately slid her fingers along the coarse hair of his chest, looking satisfied, and he couldn’t help it this time, he said her name.  His voice was hoarse.

She looked triumphant, like she had won a match, and maybe that made her brave or criminally insane because she needed more and didn’t think about anything else but making Sam say her name that way again.  Her heart was pounding and she arched up, needing more, and he was not sure which of them did it but he didn’t care because she was kissing him.

Her mouth was hard against his, and he slowed the kiss, to make her feel it.  He wanted to hear her say he was right and that she wanted him, to feel her open for him.  She made a small noise, low in her throat, when his tongue touched hers.  Ruth twisted into him, trying to kiss him harder but he didn’t let her, not yet.  When Sam pulled back, Ruth looked almost stunned, and he felt some of his confidence return.

“Maybe we don’t need St. Juda,” Sam said, as he kissed the top of her head, rubbing his nose against the soft curls, wanting to give her a break and a chance to reconsider.  He hoped she wouldn’t reconsider too much. By the way his leg was still trapped between her thighs, she hadn’t yet come to any terrible realizations.

“My God, Sam, that was –oh, sorry,“ Ruth said, loosening her grip.  She sat up, rubbing her elbow that was now severely bruised.  “This is going to hurt tomorrow.”

He heard the metal door scrape open and shut in the background, and reached to help Ruth to her feet.  “You know, there’s no reason we have to be here on the concrete like two teenage idiots,” he said, adjusting her shirt.  “We do have – shit,” Sam said, glancing behind her. 

“Sam. They’re paging you downstairs,” Debbie said, from across the roof.  Her voice was calm but Ruth flushed in panic all the same.  How much had she seen?  Or guessed? 

Ruth turned to look at Debbie, and met her eyes.  She put her shoulders back.  “We’ll be right down,” she said, in a too-cheerful voice.  “Just discussing the script,” she said. 

“Right.  In the dark.  On a roof.  Without the producers,” said Debbie.  “Whatever.  I’ll see you down there.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I have ever written. I am learning so much from all of the amazing writers here, and trying to become a better writer. I promise to study hard and keep trying to improve. Thank you for inspiring me.


End file.
